Carolyn Said's article on secondhand smoke ("Bill hits smokers where they live," March 12) presents fairly the dilemma for the majority of low-income tenants, nonsmokers, who can't afford to move and are being forced to smoke involuntarily.

I am a cancer patient forced to live next door to two chain-smokers hoping the California Legislature sees the common sense in simply asking smokers to smoke outside.

Put CHP on the highways

"CHP patrols on the line" (March 11) describes the significant help the Highway Patrol gives to Oakland police activity.

However, a CHP officer in Oakland is one taken off the highways, where they are trained to work. I often travel on the interstates from Palo Alto to San Francisco and rarely see a CHP cruiser while a lot of cars are doing 75 mph and more.

Cannot the money Oakland pays for the CHP be used to train more Oakland officers?

The thanks we get

I see the Afghan government has decided that the U.S. is colluding with the Taliban ("Karzai stuns U.S. by saying it is colluding with Taliban," March 11).

When we went in there - how many years ago - we were expecting gratitude!?

Dick Bagwell, Berkeley

U.S. companies can't do it?

Why is San Francisco's Mayor Ed Lee bringing the China Development Corp. to San Francisco to rebuild Hunters Point Shipyard ("Lee trying to tie down huge deal ahead of trip to close it in China," Matier & Ross, March 11)? Isn't there a U.S. company that could accomplish the same work, which would help our nation's economy? Also employ our people? Whom does he really represent, China?

No treasure on that island

Rendering of a city to be built on a sand pile in a rising sea (Matier & Ross, March 11):

For Mayor Ed Lee to go to China proposing a mega-development on Treasure Island such as the one shown causes me to question his ecological and economic judgment as well as any awareness of his responsibility to the people of San Francisco and to the citizens of the bay region.

Treasure Island was built on sand piped over from the Emeryville shoreline to make a site for the 1939 World's Fair. Crossing the bay on the Southern Pacific ferry as the bridge was being built, I remember seeing the island rising just above the surface of the water.

No one then anticipated global warming or a rising ocean, so the land surface was raised only a few feet above high tide. Building and maintaining a seawall around the whole perimeter of the island as the sea rises will be a perpetual and expensive commitment, and the rising groundwater behind the wall will be a challenge.

Other major problems such as sewage, water, fire and police protection and the traffic tangle connecting this large community to the Bay Bridge also seem to make this a poor location for a viable development.

A planet saver

Thanks, John Diaz, for supporting the carbon tax ("Our children's burden," Insight, March 10) as the most effective way to promote clean energy and reduce emissions. Increasing cost is one of the most proven, effective ways of generating action on this critical planet-wide issue.

I do, however, think supporting an entirely revenue-neutral bill, with all dividends returned to the public, would generate greater support for this much-needed legislation. This includes support from not only the "no new taxes" Republicans, but also from lower- and middle-income Americans who would find it difficult to keep up with the rising price of carbon.

A revenue neutral bill would also allow for greater yearly increases in the carbon tax rate, along with creating support in the rest of the world, we are going to need if we are going to be effective on this issue. If you look closely at the research, the 2-degree (Celsius) rise in emissions that scientists recommend we try to stay under by the end of the century will actually happen in the late 2020s if we continue with our business-as-usual energy policy. And this does not even include the effects from carbon and methane that have begun to be released from melting ice, permafrost and other carbon feedback loops.

Let lights shine -forever, on both sides

With regard to John King's critique about the Bay Lights ("Bridge artwork dazzles - but novelty fades," March 10): I and all my friends have witnessed the stunning and remarkable beauty of the lights. We intend to enjoy it every time we are in the city. The Bay Bridge is a blue-collar workhorse and the addition of the lights just makes it more San Francisco by being flamboyant. The lights should be on both sides of the bridge and should definitely be a permanent art installation.

View of lion tragedy

I'm appalled, as a British national on holiday in San Francisco, to read The Chronicle's story about the tragic incident that occurred at the Cat Haven on Wednesday ("Attack over in seconds," March 8). I have followed the story from the outset and have been shocked by the incident.

It is, of course, tragic to lose a human life in such circumstances, but for sheriff's deputies to shoot the lion to death because he would not let anyone near Dianna Hanson's body is just a further plain mindless and senseless act to add further insult to injury.

I write to strongly vent my feelings and to ask:

Why on Earth would it seem appropriate to kill the lion when a tranquilizer dart or something similar could have allowed recovery of the body in a reasonable period of time?

Where were the Cat Haven staff when the shooting of the lion took place? Perhaps to offer assistance and advise on my first question.

You now leave a second lion, Pepe, without a mate, and it is suggested in your report that Barbary lions are extinct in the wild. The precious nature of this species, it seems, was lost on the gun-wielding sheriff that day.

Absolutely mindless and a very sad story all round. My thoughts are with Hanson's family at this terrible time, but one can't help but to feel that two wrongs have certainly not made a right here.